Hi again.

So some woman I don't even know asked me today if I was ever going to post again. She is a quilter I met on Facebook. I have no idea how we are connected. I do not quilt. I have more quilter friends on Facebook than I do, say, people I know from my high school. What I have learned is that quilters are super intense about quilting and they like wine. Anyway, she's a nice lady and so, Teri, you weird stranger, here you are. A new post. And it only took me ten months and one friendly nudge.

 So you're probably wondering what I've been up to. Probably thinking I'm writing a new album, a novel. Maybe I've been travelling. Digging wells in Botswana. Being a volunteer fire fighter.

 Nah. I've been watching TV and eating rice crackers. 

But some stuff has happened. I'll get you caught up.

 We got a new cat. A friend of mine who is way, way more vegan than me, had a cat that needed rescuing. Needed rescuing real hard. So, despite Brian's fear of black cats, we took on our third cat. We named her Mickey, after my mom. But we call her Mertz because that's the sound she makes. Pretty much nonstop. Especially in the early early morning time. She is now Brian's favourite. He says all other cats in the world suck compared to Mickey/Mertz.

 My friend Bill and I did a fundraiser concert in support of Happily Ever Esther, the new farm animal sanctuary for Esther the Wonder Pig and her farm friends. It was my first solo show in, um, 14 years. I was nervous, but we had fun and we sold out 2 shows and with the help of some generous donations of raffle prizes, we raised over $3000.

I cry for the animals.

 Went to Cancun with my friend who exercises a lot and is super hot. She's also smart and funny and nice, so I didn't fill her bikinis with sand and scorpions. She was also kind enough to hold my hand while I had a panic attack for no reason. I'm super fun to travel with.

those are defined abs on my friend. It is not an appendectomy scar.

I had some quality nose picking time.

 I watched some excellent tv and read a couple books.

I learned a new term for the tiny bathing suits that older, overweight men wear: Budgie Smugglers

 I continue to stalk Castle. Not Nathan Fillion. I'm mad at him because he ignores my Twitter shout outs. But the character he plays on TV still gets all my lovin'. I'm a bit concerned that the show has jumped the shark, but I will continue to watch. Because love is like that.

 Bill and I did a show at Christmas. We had special guests join us, including the amazing Peter Lebuis and Megan Saunders and Paula Henry. We sang the songs from the old days.

fa la la la la

 I went to visit my mom.

 I somehow acquired 8 new quilter friends on Facebook. Who the hell are these people?

 I continued to not care about sports.

 That's about it.

Ok.

See you in 10 months.

 Here is a poem.

Stuff And Such

Forgive me, Internet, for I have been lazy. It has been two months since my last blog.

I'd like to be able to tell you that my bloggish absence has been due to a round the world trip, or that I've adopted a baby and have been super busy wiping it's bum, or that I'm finishing up that novel I've been working on. None of the above.

Fact is, I am a lazy ass.

But I have been doing, I don't know, stuff, I guess.

So here's a quick run thru what I've been up to while you've all been super waiting time action party.

1. Took in a stray cat. Named him Wayne. Spent the equivalent of the GNP on fixing him up to make him presentable.



                             BEFORE: Infected eyes, super skinny, super bitey.

       

                                Scabby eyes,  swollen lip (someone is allergic     to fish. Really?).

Had to have his super impressive cat testicles removed. I'd never seen cat balls before. They're crazy!

                             Yes, those were cat balls at the beginning there. I know.



                             Now he's all perfect. Perfect eyes, normal mouth. Still bitey.

 He has a pink nose.

2. Did another walk for Farm Sanctuary. Again, my friends helped me to be the number one fund raiser for Toronto.

3. Continuing to volunteer for www.nutritionfacts.org. I have had to find a lot of images of turmeric. A lot. I'm thinking of suggesting to Dr. Greger (the guru of nutritionfacts.org) to change the name of his site to www.turmericfacts.org because there is a great deal of info on turmeric there. Apparently, it's good for you.

photo of turmeric by h-bomb/Flickr


4. Did a couch to 5k program to kick start myself back into running. Am currently running about 25-30 miles per week and feel so so so much better. I don't love running, but I love having finished running. My times are slower than they were a few years ago when I was running regularly. I'm saying it's due to aging. Right?

5. I continue to do laundry.


6. I have taken up eating mixed nuts. It's kind of a hobby, kind of a craft, you know. Just seeing where it takes me.

7.  I stubbed my toe really bad that time.

8. Discovered the joy of listening to podcasts while I run. These are some that I've listened to, and they really do make the time go faster.

          http://www.stuffyoushouldknow.com/podcasts/

          http://www.philosophybites.com

          http://www.compassionatecook.com/category/media/podcast-media



9. I went for a latte with Ryan.

10. Just today I cleaned out my dishwasher's filter for the first time in 6.5 years. I think you're supposed to do it more often than that. It was basically a solid mass of goo made up of bits of paper, grape stems and apple stickers. I wish I'd taken a photo because it was really horrific and you probably want to see that, right? Sorry gang.

11. Have done some Christmas shopping. I'm sort of meh about Christmas these days. Once I see my mommy next week, though, all will be better.

I did some other stuff too.

But seriously, I have no idea what to blog about these days. So I give you scraps. So sorry. I love you. I love you like I loved that guy in the "67" t-shirt at Saints Roller Rink in Winnipeg, 1979 (Garden City Saints location). He never wanted to skate with me to "Sad Eyes". He had perfect hair. I think he smoked.

That is all.

The Secrets of Our Parents.

I'm visiting my mom.

I love my mom a lot. But I've said that before.

I think it's a universal thing -  kids don't see their parents as human beings, individuals with their own hopes, dreams, disappointments, failings, etc., until they are adults themselves.

 Parents are - ideally - food, affection and car key giving automatons, whose sole purpose is to provide their offspring with the necessities of life, plus a bunch of other crap that the other kids at school get because their parents have a great gig at Manitoba Hydro.

And then little by little you find out details of your parents' lives that you can relate to:

 first loves, 

addiction to online shopping








inexplicable urges to binge drink

lack of athletic prowess, 

or what have you.

And sometimes you find out things about your parents that take you completely by surprise. We find out things about our parents, dark secrets we wish we could bleach out of our consciousness, and go back to seeing them as the man in the La-Z-Boy watching Monty Python re-runs, and the woman eating orange peels while she reads improving literature.

This has happened to me.

I have discovered that my mom is money-crazed.

Now, we're good Scottish folk, and being a bit tight with my pursestrings, I should not have been surprised, but still, some things don't need to be screamed out for all to see.

Or at least not written down clearly in a day-book on the kitchen counter.

My mom is super organized. Every aspect of her day is planned and each errand or activity is written out and then gets crossed off as they are completed.

So, I guess she was just being thorough when she wrote down the following entry. This is what my mom has planned for April 14, 2013.

And it's all she has planned for that day, apparently.

Does she have some hideaway where she secrets off to, to roll around in wads of cash, gold coins  and pearls spilling out of ancient chests? 

 litlnemo/Flickr

Or does she go somewhere where someone else counts her cash for her, while she stand behind him holding a gun? 

Do we ever really know our parents?

So if my mom has to set aside an entire day to count her money, that means she must have a crapload of dough, right? She's a pretty good counter, so I imagine she could count pretty high in, say, an 8 hour period.

This brings to mind that for Christmas, I got pot scrubbers.

In spite of her secret, I continue to adore my mommy. And not because I expect that she'll ever share her wealth with me. No. I know she's going to donate it all to the church because she's so damned churchy. No. I love her because she's excellent.

Except at skiing.

She kinda sucks at that.

Knitting

I've decided to give knitting another try.

In the past I've been unable to stick with it because knitting is hard and I don't do anything unless it comes really easily and makes people think I'm all that (is the phrase "all that" still a thing?)

But it's turned cold here in Toronto and I've got a cat and a fireplace and it is a universal truth that all middle aged women with fireplaces and cats MUST knit. It's kind of a biological imperative. Like sex might be for some people.

I have many accomplished knitters in my life, including (but not limited to) my Mom,  Megan, Dianna, Lori, Marsha, etc. My friends Ryan and Channing are also amazing knitters, but they are not middle aged women, so they are kinda ruining my theory. Stupid Ryan and Channing.

Some of my earliest memories of childhood are watching my mom knitting; counting stitches, the click of the needles, winding yarn into a ball while my dad held the hank up in two hands, like a supplicant, or like a man begging for his bachelorhood back.

I figured the knitting gene must have skipped a generation and instead of that skill I was blessed with an extremely "low tolerance for frustration".  My knitting projects were only deemed "finished" when I had dissolved into tears and had moved on to Dip-a-Flower.

But here I am again, facing the needles. Why now?

Because my current needlepoint project has about eleventy billion miles of background and I'm giving it a rest for now.

So, all excited about trying to outsmart my tantrum gene, I trundled off to The Purple Purl to get myself some yarn.

 I was given balls of fuzz and a pattern and sent on my way. I was going to make mittens, dammit, as my mom says mittens are good things to learn on because they cover a lot of different techniques that are common in knitting.

When I got home and got set up to start my project I realized that there was one key difference between my previous stabs at knitting and my current foray:

Youtube. (you thought I was going to say "booze", right?)

Whereas before I had to count on the patience of others to teach me, now I could just search "how to knit ribbing" or "knitting how to decrease". And up would pop several videos of English ladies with perfectly manicured nails showing me how to do exactly what I needed to do.

And now, instead of having to soldier through a rage of frustration, I could just put-the-knitting-down-and-walk-away. Before, if I'd had someone teaching me, I'd have to show at least a pretence of stick-to-it-iveness. Youtube enables my short attention span and quick draw whininess.

I abandoned the mittens after 6 attempts. 

I thought I'd try making this adorable little kitten:

You can get the pattern HERE!

This is how it turned out:

So I started a a scarf pattern that seemed straight forward. This is what a shawl version of it looks like:

You can get the pattern HERE!

This is how it turned out:

I thought maybe I'd just try some straight knitting. You know, like a washcloth? 

I found a pattern called The Idiot's Dishcloth. Perfect, I think to self. This is how it's supposed to look:

You can get the pattern HERE!

This is how it turned out.

And yet I keep trying.

Now I am doing a basic knit knit knit til the freaking end of time scarf.

We'll see how long I last before I totally lose my nut.

America the Beautiful

The United States is constantly under fire for, well, most everything. They are collectively to blame for all the world's evils, apparently. Don't get me wrong - the US of A does have to bear responsibility for many seriously global concerns, financial, environmental, ethical, legal, what have you. With great power comes great temptation for corruption. Canada has its own dark closets, that are becoming more and more like whole rooms in our house than regrettably decorated nooks. Glass houses and stones and all that.


In the spirit of camaraderie, a sort of recognition that Ohmygod, WE suck TOO, I'd like to talk today about the things that I, as A Canadian, love about the USA.


JCrew.

I love the idea of these pants but not so much the reality.

Tiny legged American Goddesses. I envy.

 How do I love thee? Your preppie fresh styles modelled by gamine, pencil-legged sorority sisters draw me in like a child at a candy store window. I've had pretensions in my past of wanting to sport a more sophisticated, bohemian-y, industrial, punk, cowgirl or prostitute aesthetic, but let's face it. I'm going to wear JCrew, and JCrew like clothes until I die. In fact, if there is a heaven, I'm pretty sure it will include a JCrew flagship store and I'll have the never ending store credit.

Jacksonville, Oregon.


 And the area around it. This part of the world is just beautiful. I looked for photos to pop in, but there'd be too many copyright issues so do your own Google search and be amazed.


Hollywood Blockbusters. 

Who doesn't love explosions and vistas and one liners that become part of our cultural vernacular? (see "I'll be back", "What do you do, what DO you do?", "You can't handle the truth", etc.). I like a classy art film as much as the next douche-bag, but really, when I see a movie, I want to be distracted and transported to someone else's exciting post apocalyptic, slender armed world where children are respectful and villains are obvious.




Sesame Street. 


My brother learned to read at the age of, like, six months, thanks to Sesame Street. I learned to read at about 5, but more importantly I learned to love puppets, cookies, and the generosity of the number 3 and the letter K, without whom Sesame Street would not exist. When I watched Sesame Street, Grover was a new resident. Elmo wasn't even a twinkle in his eye. Is Elmo Grover's son? I have no clue. I told my mom I wanted to marry Bob from Sesame Street and I remember her muttering, he's probably married with 5 kids. What did that matter? I was 4 years old and in love. I still have great respect for Sesame Street although I've had that damned "Twelve" song with the pinball graphic stuck in my head for, like, 35 years.





LOL Catz. 'Nuff said. I'm assuming it's an American thing. 




Toilet paper. 


Yes. Patented by New Yorker Seth Wheeler in the late 19th century, he was the great great grandfather of Kitteny Softness, the Charmin Dingleberry bear and the affectionate term "Ass wipe". So many reasons to give thanks, here!




Tupperware.

http://order.tupperware.ca/

I know that there are many issues with plastics and the leakage of toxins into our stored food, as well as there just being too much plastic in landfills and what not, but Tupperware is amazing because it's so organized and you can pour your cereal from one container into another and it will look all matching. My friends know I have an issue with Tupperware in that if I send you home with leftovers in my Tupperware, by not returning it to me you are basically stabbing me in the heart and you might as well never speak to me again. Return my Tupperware. Or I will cut you. In the face. With a rusty thing.


Rock and Roll.

http://www.bleachernation.com

Move me, groove me, paid for my house.




Padded bike seat. 


Invented by Art Garford of Ohio. This version has gel in it! 

http://www.amazon.com/Padded-Silicon-Thick-Bicycle-Cover/dp/B006DU8LE8

Would you like to sit on the alternative? 

http://www.oldschoolbmx.de/

I would not. I would not like to sit on that. Ever.




The card game Gin Rummy.


Invented by Elwood and Graham Baker in 1909, this is the card game I play with my mother where we shed all pretence of civility and go for the jugular. 

mwhahahahaha

Cut throat Rummy, we call it. I know I mentioned in a previous entry that my mother lets me win at Gin Rummy. She does not. 

About to annihilate me.

Nor do I let her win. I could be on my death bed playing our last game ever and she would take me down like so many penny carnival ducks. We are merciless.


Here is a score card. Editorial comments by my mother.

Of course there are lots of other things American that are super amazing - the internet, cotton candy, the artificial heart, bubblegum, the fortune cookie, Wikipedia (where I got a lot of the above info, thanks) - too many to list here. But I just want to provide a sampling of a few of my favourite American things. So Happy Birthday to you, U S of A, from your Northern Neighbour Elpoo.

Clyde and the Apostles

I was pretty lucky, wasn’t I? I mean the first band I played in got a record deal and had hits and we toured the world and all that. Didn’t have to pay my dues, as it were. I was washed along in a current of right place right time and don’t for one minute think I’m not grateful. Seems like I just plopped into the music industry and won the lottery on my first ever ticket buy.

Well, I was actually in other musical combo groups before I joined the one that brought you such hits as that humming song and the other one that was bigger in Canada than in the States, but was kind of charming until it got so incredibly overplayed that Gene Simmons of KISS was moved to mock us on Much Music. There are different kinds of honours.

So yes, I was in a couple other bands before I was in the Dummies. In High School, my friend Allison and I were in a band for one day called 20-20. This was their logo - or something like this (it was 30 years ago).

 I learned to play Loverboy’s Turn Me Loose on a borrowed keyboard. That was the only song we played. I vaguely remember being in someone’s garage and me and the other guy (not Allison) looking at each other and knowing this was not going to work out, but we came to that identical conclusion by different routes. 

The other group I was in had a little bit more longevity and even toured for awhile. 

Clyde and the Apostles played senior homes around Selkirk for a couple years in the 1970’s. My family, along with the the kids from another couple of families, would go to Betel Home and Tudor House and  Red River Place and put on a musical Spectacle that those old folks would not soon forget, unless they forgot right away, which would happen.

My Dad would play the piano and my mom would sing.

Garth would play ukelele, guitar, banjo, trombone and for one session, the trumpet. Those seniors wouldn't sleep through that one, I can tell you. 

ready to rock the seniors.

I would sing and be adorable, if fat. Our family friends, the Southern kids (Lee, Theresa and Mark) joined us. Mark would do a song with Garth - he was kind of a musical Tim Conway to my brother’s Harvey Korman.  They’d do something country inspired and upbeat. Lee and Theresa would play something on the oboe. Yes. They both played the oboe. The world’s most mournful sounding instrument and quite likely rendering the musician the least sexy looking when played. Lee and Theresa. Such lovely young women made so red and  explody looking even while they made such beautiful music. The oboe is a harsh mistress.

Joan and Janet Hardy, together with their friends the Gebhardts (known throughout the Interlake as that Quirky Quartet, the “Gebhardys) would sing something wearing matching outfits. I think the seniors liked them the best. Young, cute and lively. 

Damn them.

Other friends, like Richard Hooker, Leanne Gilbart and the Sokoloski twins classed it up with Richard's rendition of "Some Enchanted Evening", or the twins sweet voices crooning "The Rose". Mom always sang the songs from the 30's and 40's to play to the crowd. 

I sometimes had to play a piano solo, which caused me some anxiety, or I’d get to sing a duet with my mom -  “I Can Do Anything Better Than You Can” from the musical Annie Get Your Gun. We’d write our own verses - I can sing any note higher than you, I can sing any note louder than you, I can sing any note lower... what have you. Inspired a sense of competition in music in me. Can’t listen to Annie Lennox to this day because I am jealous that she can sing any note louder, higher, better than I. Yes she can, yes she can yes she caaaaaaaan!

Or mom would sing “Where are you going, my little one, little one” while I stood in front of her looking adorable and fat. 

One year I told her I really really wanted to sing The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, because it’s such a beautiful song. She said it wasn’t appropriate for a little girl to sing. I didn’t figure out why til years later. I mean.... years! I pay little attention to lyrics, I guess. i mean the song didn’t even rhyme and it was about getting it on. I was, like eight. That would have shaken up things at Tudor House, non?

Clyde and The Apostles were only together for a few years and only did a half dozen gigs or so, but we left our mark, I’ll tell you. People are still talking about that time Garth Reid played Purcell’s trumpet voluntary at Betel, and when Mickey Reid sang Danny Boy. Ah, they all got a bit misty, they did. 

future supahstah

My mom has even saved a couple of our “set lists”.

Yes. You read that right. A trio of piano, saxophone and trombone. I was a veritable Clarence Clemons.

Eventually, I got a little older and was too mortified to be seen singing with my family in public. My parents were likely relieved I'd lost interest. The seniors were frightened of my weird and zit ravaged face. 


We were no Partridge Family. But we tried. It would be years later before I humiliated myself on a stage again. 

Those were heady days, a whirl wind of occasional Sunday night shows in Old Folk’s Home dining rooms across our town. They taught me about life on the road and how to work a crowd to win them over (Look adorable and fat). Those shows also taught me not to get too upset if an audience member falls asleep, a good lesson for industry shows later in life.